


Little Brother

by LadyLuckDoubt



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Child Abuse, Familial Abuse, M/M, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, psychological abuse, video taping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-18
Updated: 2011-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckDoubt/pseuds/LadyLuckDoubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after Manfred's death, Franziska returns to the von Karma household to try and put his memory-- and her issues with feeling like the neglected child of the family-- to rest. Instead, she stumbles upon documented evidence of what Manfred was busy doing to her "little brother."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Brother

**Author's Note:**

> _I don't think I've seen fics of Franziska dealing with how badly Edgeworth's life was fucked over by her father. I tend to think she had trouble dealing with it, and Miles never acted traumatized so she tended to ignore it._
> 
>  _So, I want her going through her father's posessions after he's been arrested, and finds disturbing evidence of just how far her father went to make his life a living hell. Journals, photos, videos, whatever. Just proof that Von Karma was dedicating a large portion of his life to making Miles miserable while training him to be grateful for it. Serious physical and emotional abuse are definately wanted, sexual abuse is ok later in his life. Franziska had no idea._
> 
>  _How does she deal with it? Does she confront Miles, or her father, or both? It can also be after VK is dead, your choice. I'd love to see the way her apparent protectiveness of him (IE, calling him Little Brother) come into play, but please no GK spoilers._
> 
> That was another Kink Meme prompt, and I sat on it for _ages_ because I wanted to do it justice. The von Karma family dynamics have always interested me, and I was pleased to see their representation in AAI, because I'd always felt that they were like that.
> 
> STRONG, HUGE, MASSIVE WARNINGS for abuse here, and mentions suicidal ideation, though the focus of the fic is more surrounding the reactions and the shift in Franziska's state of mind than the actual abuse itself.

_I._

There is only so much brutality which the human heart can take before it changes.

Franziska knows this. She's pushed it down somewhere low, beneath her shoes, stomped it into the ground where it's gone and she can forget about it. No one is invincible, people shut down. People harden and dissociate, people become permanent victims who are terrified of life-- or all that horror and cruelty paradoxically shapes the soul into the thing which tried to destroy it.

She's not sure what happened to Miles. He was always unusual, brilliant,  _different_ \-- maybe he split, part of him is detached from the world; cool logic can solve anything and everything and always will-- part of him is the eternal victim, the fetal-curved young man sobbing like a child when affected by stimuli he doesn't want to deal with; part of him is colder and harder than she will ever be-- and it terrifies her. She wears her rage like a suit of armour, her defenses are upfront; people see them with the flick of a whip and a snide insult. Miles is subtle and calculating, Miles is switched off, Miles is  _cool_. His kindness and softness is professional, she suspects, but what lies beneath that? She's terrified it's nothing, that his mentor has shaped him so thoroughly into being himself that no matter what now, there is no turning back. He's gone. He's broken. He's  _changed._

  
She doesn't drink often, but tonight is different. Alcohol is a foolish waste of time for foolhardy fools who foolishly wish to partake in activities which will foolishly wind up destroying them. People who drink to escape only have themselves to blame. She has neither time nor sympathy for those who do this; to drink your problems away is to be  _weak_  and a von Karma was raised better than to show weakness to anyone, herself included.

A von Karma was never taught what to do when it became overwhelming, though. She was given a riding crop which was intended for some foolishly vague suggestion of riding classes, but it was another promise, another setup, another vague plan for her which was pushed away and ignored when he--  _Papa_ \-- realised what he'd stumbled upon. Miles was only there for her to sharpen her claws on-- she'd been assured that, she had pride of place in the house of von Karma, he was there to provoke friendly competition and bloodlust in her. Like he was just there for her own personal amusement.

It frustrated her that Papa seemed to invest so much time into him, that they had that special bond, that her little brother seemed to have so many opportunities. 

When she questioned Papa about them, he explained that Miles was a kind of teaching aid, that she was to view him as something to aspire to, and she privately wondered if Papa was fostering resentment in her solely to see her achieve and usurp him. 

It worked.

  
It was a decade after Papa's execution-- she still felt conflicted. On one hand, she was raised with a love for perfection and a hatred for criminals; on another, had Papa  _been_  perfect, no one would have found out, and Miles Edgeworth would have been dangling from a hangman's noose instead of him. 

She wasn't sure whether she hated his lies or his failure and subsequent discovery more, and she wondered how she'd have felt if Miles Edgeworth had been sentenced to death. Would she have cried and felt an uncomfortable twitch in her throat wondering about the things which never quite added up, disguising her ill ease with a caustic laugh and a flick of the whip-- or would she have sat there, numb and terrified?

Or would her face been hidden with a hand, unable to process it entirely, as tears leaked out between her fingers and she despised herself for crying because when you're a von Karma, you're perfect, and when you're perfect, you don't foolishly show emotion?

 

 

  
 _II._

She wanted to mark the anniversary with something. She dare not bother Miles Edgeworth now, dredging up vague shadows in his past seems unnecessarily cruel and pointless. In the decade that's passed, she's learned not to hate him, she doesn't need to compete with him.

She tolerates him, she wants to best him, to metaphorically bring him to pieces in a public setting, to show the world that she is Franziska von Karma, and no matter what anyone else says about the brilliance of his protege, that waif which arrived at her house and which was treated like blood-- she has remembered what the name von Karma stands for, and she's grown into that name and is a force to be reckoned with.

She's still conflicted about him, but she realised at some point that she'd accepted him. Miles was, if not anything else, a constant-- while they weren't siblings and he could never meeting the perfection of a von Karma, she and he had shared experiences and memories, and to ignore these would be like forgetting her father, forgetting his name and all that it stood for.

 

  
 _III._

She's drinking red wine like Papa did. When he'd retire to the living room after a long day at work, needing to be left in peace, when she'd walk through to the library as though cast aside-- she'd pore through old law books and take notes, leaving her findings slipped under his study door in the morning. 

She still hasn't been through his papers; she knows his cases, she's read and seen them. Ten years on and she's returned, to rightfully claim the house as  _hers_ , and all she has done so far is mirror what he used to do.

The cupboard with the lock on it intrigued her-- did Papa have more secrets? Was there another competition left in wait for them, for which the victor would gain some upper hand, some intimacy with their father figure which she'd missed out on during his life?

She found the key in the desk drawer. There was no mystery, it was obvious; no one had thought to open the cupboard until she had.

The mystery, she'd learned, was a collection of things; video footage, hardcover journals, photograph albums. Memories she'd wondered about-- memories which, for some reason, had been locked away and intended for one set of eyes only. The library already contained extensive photograph albums and records of her family history, it seemed foolish for Papa to have kept a selection of family history from her eyes. And from his.

She'd dared open one such journal and been disappointed when the name "Miles Edgeworth" had confronted her. It was like a slap in the face from the grave. Never had he been that invested, that  _interested_  in _her_ life-- granted, she'd been abroad with relatives for much of that time-- but...  _still_. The truth stung. Miles Edgeworth was the son she'd always suspected her Papa had really wanted.

Despite what he'd told her, that the boy was just there for  _her_  benefit. He'd been invested in him, interested in his development and progress. He'd always cared more about Miles Edgeworth than her, no matter what had been said to her face; he'd taken that secret to the grave.

She finished the wine and set the glass down, morbid, drunken and jealous curiosity finally getting the better of her.

These are the actions of a fool, but only she can see them. She can deal with her failure later.

 

 _IV._

She arrives back in the library with everything. Photograph albums, the journals, the collection of disks. She's going to study it all, see all the concern her Papa had for Miles Edgeworth which he was never aware of. Which he probably isn't even thinking about now; it's ten years after his death, and Miles Edgeworth foolishly opted to spend Christmas with that  _fool_ , Phoenix Wright. A von Karma wouldn't lower themselves to such tomfoolery. Or sentimentality. She's seen the back-and-forth dance between he and Wright for years now, she's seen the fall of a supposedly brilliant legal mind-- and now she's seen Miles Edgeworth decide to spend Christmas with him, as though he's finally settling down. 

She's disgusted that he cannot remember, that he's not realised that it's a decade now. She's angry; the least he could have done was  _call_ , acknowledge it, make note of the significance of the date. 

Instead, he's skiing-- it's late and dark now, so he's probably not skiing any more, he's probably lying in bed with a pot of tea and a book-- and she's sitting in a darkened library, with the green glow from the bankers' lamp on the desk behind her, wondering where to start finding out the truth.

 

 

 

 _V._

  
The sheer volume of material grates at her. There were never this many records of her own existence, she was never valued as an investment, a project, someone with potential who could one day achieve great things. 

She wonders if her name is the cause of it: by default, she is perfect because she is a von Karma, perfection does not require improvement. Miles Edgeworth, on the other hand, was imperfect, ready to be molded into something better; something which never would be perfect.

She removes a disc from its white slip-cover, notes the date marked on it-- 2006-- Miles would have been thirteen or so if the date is to be believed. There's sentimentality in that age; when  _she_  was thirteen, she had become a prosecutor. It was her last year of falling behind Miles Edgeworth and existing in his shadow, the year her father noticed her.

 _What was_ he _doing at thirteen?_  

She hits play and watches as the DVD starts. 

 

  
 _VI._

She expects innocence and she's confronted with the whiteness of the perfect von Karma bathroom. It seems a strange place to film a home movie-- a shudder runs through her as she considers the implications-- the bathroom door  _locks_ \-- was it locked when this was filmed-- would there be a reason it would  _need_  to be locked?-- that she's thinking this much bothers her.

Papa was a murderer. A man driven by perfection, hellbent on maintaining his pride, the family name and his reputation.

She watches the screen as a younger Miles-- no cravat and fancy coat yet, no swagger in his step and cool confidence on his face-- he looks timid and nervous and dishevelled, as though he's been crying-- enters the room.

Papa was a distant father, he was strict, he required perfection.

It's haunting when she hears his voice.

"You  _will_  learn self-discipline and obedience," Manfred growls. She can't see where he's standing though a shadow is cast over the white tiles on the floor, and Miles is standing there, not quite looking him in the eye. Every so often his gaze drops to the porcelain white as though he already knows what to expect.

"For such a pathetic effort today, I expect you to at least perform perfectly in a much more meaningless task," he continues. "Perhaps once you've realised the life of drudgery which awaits a cleaner, you will put some more effort into your essays." 

He says nothing, and the shadow recedes. Miles turns to the cupboard behind where the linens are kept and removes a cloth and some disinfectant. Dropping to his knees, he begins painstakingly cleaning the floor.

After a few minutes, Franziska is no longer open-mouthed and shocked. She sips her wine, taking an almost smug kind of satisfaction in the fact that  _she_  never had to clean the tiles for less-than-perfect work, and watches as Miles cleans the floor.

It bothers her that Manfred found the time to film this, to keep it like a record-- when he'd dismissed her own perfect efforts up in the nursery. 

She remembers that and skips through the disc.

 

 _VII._

She's tempted to phone him. To wake him up and remind him of what a fool he's been, to drag out these humiliating moments she's only just learning of now like happy snaps at a twenty-first birthday. There's no harm in them; Miles was just an insolent child, Manfred just a mentor who didn't put up with foolishness and laziness. It was his efforts which made Miles the successful man he s today, she reminds herself, skipping through more footage of much the same thing.

She misses Papa's voice, she realises when she hears it. It's harsh and uncompromising like he is, but there's warmth in the familiarity.

After half an hour, she is bitter again, that he never seemed to demand perfection of her. Perhaps if she'd been born a failure like Edgeworth, she would have known him better.

There is an accompanying journal which she opens; she can still smell him in the paper, the cologne he wore which she never knew the name of, now lost in time and memory. She can barely read his handwriting; perfection meeting indecipherable, like his notes are written in code. There are photographs, there are stills from videos printed. 

She flicks through them angrily, not reading the accompanying notes. Enough time has been spent on him already.

 

 

 

 

 _VIII._

She's messed up the beautiful, von Karma-perfect order which the records were kept in. It's given her a sense of smug pleasure: Papa painstakingly, carefully keeping everything about Miles so well-organised  _hurts_ \-- all too often she was left to her own devices to sort out things, to analyse and figure out the world for herself-- and yet  _Miles Edgeworth_ \-- even when he was doing the wrong thing-- managed to get attention and his efforts recorded and painstakingly ordered.

She was always a good child. Precocious and clever, but rarely one to complain, never one to nag or expect adults to entertain her, Franziska's only desire, only expectation, was to be immersed in life and taken seriously. 

  
She hadn't even complained when a move meant the cancellation of riding classes, though she'd hung onto the riding crop "just in case" it was needed.

It was good for keeping Miles Edgeworth in line, good for making him not ignore her or write her off as a little kid, and she remembers the time she drew blood after striking him across the nose for foolishly contemplating replying to those letters from that old friend of his one morning.

"That  _hurt_." She remembers the almost resigned hurt in his face, the fact that he didn't retaliate, and the way Papa ignored them as though they were squabbling children. They  _weren't_  children-- she was  _ten_ , Miles Edgeworth was seventeen, not quite a real adult yet, and certainly not a force to be reckoned with-- especially not when he moved awkwardly and had the typically imperfect blemishes of adolescence marring his face. She'd wondered then what she'd have to do for Papa to notice, and pulling the riding crop to her side and glaring at him, she hissed-- "It was meant to."

  
There's a disk from around that time, a bit earlier perhaps; it was annoyingly stuck behind the previous one. Why  _multiple_  discs are necessary is still a mystery to her, and bored and curious, she places it into the player.

 

 

It's Christmas, she can see from the decorations in the living room; it's dark, she realises, from the glow of the fire in the hearth and the disjointed alien specks of fairylights outside reflecting in the window. 

She can't tell where the camera is located initially, and there's curiosity in her face as there are a few seconds of footage, the same angle, the same nothing worth seeing. Why here, why now? Why did the disc start so late in the year?

Papa appears from the left hand side and sits down, and Miles Edgeworth steps into the frame of the camera's vision, waiting, watching him with a look on his face which is deeply satisfying to Franziska. It bothers her that she never managed to make him look like that; he looks steely but scared, submissive and perfect, someone who knows his place.

"I'm sure you're aware of the date," Papa says smoothly, and Franziska wonders why she didn't realise earlier. His father had died around this time of year, hadn't he? At that stage, she never knew the cause of death, just that Miles Edgeworth's father had died, and that was why he was living in the von Karma household.

"Happy anniversary." His voice is grave and solemn, the word  _happy_  seems wrong for the tone and the occasion. Pouring herself some more wine, she relaxes back into the chair, wondering what is going to happen next.

Things have been repositioned in the living room, but she realises that the very chair she's sitting in is the same one Papa is seated in on the screen.

Hearing his voice again fills her with a lonely sort of regret; at some stage she remembered him telling her that to be perfect was to be lonely, to remain an outsider, that the reward one got for perfection was distance-- but that the satisfaction of being able to look down on everyone else made up for it and to be truly perfect was to understand.

"T-Thankyou, sir." It's funny the way his voice trembles, how he looks so consumed with emotion that he doesn't want to spill forth-- if  _she'd_  been there, she'd have struck him with the whip for his foolishness.

"You don't even know what you're thanking me for."

"I'm sorry, sir."

He's learned so much from Papa, but he hasn't learned how to speak without sounding ashamed, she thinks.

She sips the wine, savouring it, savouring the details. There's a smug kind of revenge she's relishing at the moment; it's not quite having Papa here and being able to talk with him, but all these videos, these memories, are like a part of him that's managed not to leave.

And they're here, and they're  _hers_. It's funny how intimate it feels, how she's giving Papa her undivided attention, watching him intently like this; when all in all, none of this really has anything to do with her. His absence had plenty to do with her, she thinks bitterly, in law an omission to act can be an act, in parenthood, the same should apply.

Miles Edgeworth looks broken and confused; he's not going to be asked to clean the bathroom again because it's night time and the sunlight through the bathroom window suggested that he only did that during the day. 

"If you are going to bother apologising, I'd prefer it if you at least  _attempted_  to sound convincing," Papa says dryly.

"Fool!" snorts Franziska drunkenly. She takes a bigger sip of wine now and looks on expectantly. What's Papa going to do now?

She's almost irritated that in all these years, Papa never allowed her to see this, and never asked for her assistance. 

The whip sits on the sofa next to her. She'd have put it to good use, she tells herself, she'd have made Papa proud of her.

 

 _IX._

"I'm-- sorry-- sir." The words are forced out uncomfortably, and those intelligent grey eyes flash for a second, as though he already knows that an apology isn't going to cut it this time.

"Convince me, Miles." 

He blinks again, startled, as though he's expecting further admonishment for not knowing how to correct the situation. Franziska giggles from the sofa-- there's a sweetness, a softness, a  _weakness_  evident in him right now; he's not the cool, serious, all-together man who bested her and stole her rightful place as the von Karma heir; he's just her little brother now, and really, he looks so  _pathetic_  when he doesn't understand something.

The video remains the same; Miles Edgeworth is standing there cluelessly. Papa gives him a stern, uncompromising look-- just like he's in court-- and Miles fumbles and stutters. "I-I-er, don't-know-what-y-y-ou-wantmetodo--sir." 

She wonders what it's like to feel humiliation, the power of a boss or a mentor, a god-like figure controlling her and making her feel guilt.

She never had one:  _he_  was busy dealing with  _him_. 

Her eyes blaze with rage and she finishes the glass. Her head feels light and spinny, and when Papa points to the floor and Miles Edgeworth gets to his knees, she leans closer even though the camera angle is obscured by the small glass-topped coffee table.

He doesn't have to say anything, it's a mere movement of his leg; initially she raises an eyebrow-- Papa was never like  _that_ , no he wasn't, he couldn't be-- and she's relieved when her suspicions are confirmed and Miles Edgeworth leans forward to kiss his solid, brutal-looking boots instead.

There's a weak flutter of a voice as he lifts his head momentarily. "Forgive me, sir.  _Please_."

If Papa laughed, it would have been amusing, it would have been pantomime; overacted with expected results. But Papa didn't laugh, instead tilting his head and carefully observing, as though he's making sure Miles Edgeworth doesn't do anything else wrong.

Franziska smirks drunkenly. She can't see much from the way the camera's positioned, just Miles Edgeworth shifting slightly, his back, his shoulders moving, his head rising a little and then going back to the task at hand.

There's a twitch in her stomach, not quite describable, when she realises that she probably should be enjoying this more than she is. Something feels  _off_  about it, something she can't place-- perhaps the wine has blunted her senses and she can't enjoy the focus and concentration of her little brother while he's oh-so-carefully licking Papa's boots.

Papa isn't looking at him. He's not  _not_  looking at him, either, it's as though he's  _waiting_  for something else, or as though he's too disgusted with his to even grant him attention. 

Franziska gets bored. Boredom, that's all it is, she tells herself, all she can see is Papa's side profile and Miles Edgeworth barely moving about, his head bent down obscuring his expression, and the blurry darkness of a table leg. Nothing is  _happening_.

She slowly-- slowly because she's being careful, careful because  _maybe_  she's a little bit tipsy-- ejects the disc.

Moving back to the sofa--  _I forgot to put something else in_ \-- the hazy grain of static lights the room slightly, a not-quite-bouncing, reverberating unnatural glow. It lacks the warmth of candlelight, the softness; it's harsh and grey and alien. But strangely suited to the circumstances; it's watching depressing wartime documentaries from bygone times.

Except that it's Miles Edgeworth and Papa, and she's not sure quite where things changed, where he ceased being merely pathetic and the evidence of it turned into something more unsettling.

Her foot nudges a journal, and she opens it, randomly seeing Papa's indecipherable scrawl on the pages. There are photos mingled in amongst the writing, held in place with perfectly placed corners, a macabre scrapbook of journey. The few photos she sees aren't particularly telling, and jealousy rises in her again; they're just pictures of Miles Edgeworth, looking typically moody and pale and angst-ridden as he always seemed to be when he was younger. They look like  _portraits_.

All that  _work_  which went into him: all that interest and concern.

And Miles Edgeworth?

So ungrateful. He might have been licking Papa's boots just then, but he was being shaped into what he became; a success, a mirror image of the greatest prosecutor alive. All the drama and hysteria had been driven out of him; he'd become a  _machine_ , a weapon, sleek and sturdy and deadly accurate in the courtroom.

She'd had to find her own way there. 

  
One of the pictures catches her attention; Miles Edgeworth at fifteen; his hair a bit darker and his limbs too long for his body-- the picture catches her attention because the backdrop shows white outside the window; it was that Christmas they'd spent in Germany. That Christmas  _he'd_  ruined; she remembers it because she'd only been small and it was the year Papa returned to America with her, stating that if she was serious about a legal education, she could return home with him.

He'd commented that she could probably already best him in court and her heart soared for a second, but it was a flyaway, dismissive comment not directed towards her, but towards  _him_. She realises now that she'd never quite understood that at the time and thought that Papa had actually seen some hope in her.

She remembers that Christmas vividly for other reasons. She remembers Miles Edgeworth being especially sullen, and the car starting in the middle of the night, and murmurs around her room which terrified her into leaving the door closed. She remembers Miles the next day, a mysterious bandage running from his wrist to his elbow, she remembers the glares Papa directed at him, and asking if the worst thing in the world was to be a failure. 

The picture is from before that morning, before the incident in the night time and before Miles acquired the bandage.

 

 

 

 _X._

  
She empties the remainder of the bottle into her glass and forces herself to chuckle; like a bad guy in a film, a cruel mistress, indestructible and terminally indifferent.

The kind of woman who'd watch heartbreaking home horror movies, the worst memories of someone's life, maybe, for  _amusement_.

 _It's only Miles Edgeworth_ , she tells herself as she looks at the messed up, out of order pile of records.  _And he's okay... look at him now, the ...foolish fool... established and distinguished... the unraveller of mysteries, the champion of justice..._  She's rambling, even in her head.

She remembers many years ago, being set against him just before what was meant to be his first trial; she wasn't far away from sitting the bar exams; and there was Miles Edgeworth, acting as though he had some sort of  _authority_. She was not sure whether it had been part of the process, if they'd been set against one another so she could rise the victor and rightfully put him in his place-- of if Papa had some other motive.

In the precinct, they'd treated her like a little girl, but she was harder than that, organised, deliberate and very very clever. Papa's words about perfection and loneliness occur to her; she was always lonely. She was always difficult, she thinks smiling smugly now: she still  _is_. And Miles back then was starting to properly find his feet; the angst was gone, the hardness was more directed; glazed over for the most part with a deceptive softness-- he was always more diplomatic, on the surface, than she was: diplomacy and even  _pretending_  to bow own to someone else was--  _is_ \-- a sign of weakness.

She thinks of Miles Edgeworth on the floor at Papa's feet and grabs another disc to place something else over the memory.

 

 _XI._

There are scattered discs on the floor, they haven't been returned to their covers-- she'll take care of that in the morning. Yes, it's sloppy and imperfect and hardly befitting a von Karma, but a slightly panicked need to distract herself has taken her over for the time being.

She doesn't like others seeing her imperfections. With anyone else, they're acceptable, for her, they're not. Her identity is forged on two things: being Manfred von Karma's daughter and being perfect. It's not much, she thinks wryly as she takes another sip from the glass; it's not like anyone can erase DNA even though Papa is dead, her genes are irrefutable proof of the fact that she's his blood and bone and legacy. Perfection comes with that; but like a plant bearing beautiful flowers, perfection needs to be maintained and cared for. Sometimes perfection is like walking a tightrope, it's the dangerous and sometimes harder than it looks legacy few others would be able to manage; she's lucky she is who she is.

It's not as though her identity is based on anything material. It's all feasible and doable and maintainable.

Another sip of wine and she slides a disc into the player. What  _else_  had Papa noted about that foolish and imperfect Miles Edgeworth?

  
It's dark. The blurred grain of the recording met with the unnatural contrast from the lights dotted around the room suggest that it's night time, and the fact that Miles Edgeworth is dressed in foolishly pink pyjamas seems to add weight to her observation. There's no date on the corner of the screen, there must have been on the casing; from the footage, it appears that Miles Edgeworth is about seventeen again.

They're back in the loungeroom, and he's sitting in the chair opposite Papa's; his face is flushed and Franziska isn't sure whether it's from the warmth of the fireplace not too far behind him or something else. 

She gives brief thought to the Miles Edgeworth of  _now_ , spending his time and money taking himself a leisurely alpine holiday, bringing that scruffy former lawyer with him. She wonders if somehow a part of the von Karmas permeated him, if he took it on without realising it, if he's relishing that sense of power in being able to manipulate another human being like that. She knows Wright isn't stupid, that he relied on luck and guile when he was in the courtroom, and she wonders yet again:  _why him?_

It is the mark of the imperfect, getting involved with other people. Miles Edgeworth fell from grace when he allowed Wright into his life; he didn't quite maintain cool and distant, there was always some strange and almost noble desire to help for most of the time; pathetic and utterly foolish.

He'd never been like that before.

  
Miles Edgeworth on the screen is looking nervous. She smiles; it's the nervousness of a defendant about to break or a defense attorney who has been bested; even though she had that weird feeling before, she knows that look like a shark knows the scent of blood, and she can't help but show interest. Maybe it is in her blood. 

She recalls the kindergarten report stating that she was a rigid thinker, quick to anger, and had a violent temper. She remembers why they started homeschooling her; because she was asked not to return to classes; her quick grasp of work which was well beyond her was one thing, suffering the regular intelligence of children her own age was something she hadn't mastered. 

As she grew older she became accustomed to words;  _their_  terms, which it appeared that someone else had deemed bad things.  _Persistent. Aggressive. Arrogant. Sadistic. Brutal._  They were hers, hers alone, only to be shared with the von Karma name. And evidently, they needed to be  _earned_  for one to be regarded as such.

  
"What do you think your father would have to say about this?" Papa asks him in grave tones. 

Miles Edgeworth tilts his head; he's been crying, she's certain from that angle, he looks as though he's come in from running through sleet and rain, only his hair and pyjamas aren't wet.

"I-I don't know, sir." His voice sounds even more soulless and weak, vaporlike-- than it did when he was about to get onto his knees.

"Do you think he'd be  _pleased_  to know this about you, Miles?" It's one of the few times she's heard Papa sound so friendly and kind, without any undercurrent or expectation. Her face hardens once more and he mouth feels slack:  _he_  got this side of Papa.

She hopes it's some kind of a trap.

"I- I doubt it, sir." There's the tremble. The smell of figurative blood in the air.

"So why must you partake in such revolting foolishness under my roof?" his voice has raised, it's a dull roar now, still collected and controlled, but loud and terrifying.

She's still never watched the video from the day in court when he collapsed. She watched Papa up against Wright, watched stoic Miles Edgeworth on the stand or next to Wright while witnesses testified; but some excuse always got in the way of her seeing the footage from the last day.

Maybe some part of her never wants to see him uncontrolled and helpless and furious and undignified and scared. Because von Karmas should not look like that.

He's crying again; he doesn't look scared, he looks defeated and broken, damaged, as though the tears are just leaking down the side of his face. She sees the sleeve of his pyjama top rise up and the hint of a scar appear as his hand rises to cup his cheek helplessly.

"And you're daring  _cry_  now?" Papa never liked emotional reactions, unless they were from his witnesses, because he argued that emotional responses could hide things, lies or ugly realities which could be easily forgotten, or suppresses, if one cried at the right time or laughed at the wrong one.

Emotional displays were a form of cheap manipulation, something stupid and uncultured people did; von Karmas and their students needed not succumb to such banal behaviour.

Yet Miles Edgeworth is sobbing. "I'm sorry," he mumurs, "Forgive me...  _everything_."

A guilty man unprepared for the noose. A lamb to the slaughter. 

Franziska wonders briefly what he was doing, what was given away through his actions, and she sips her wine again and smiles, wondering if maybe she shouldn't. But maybe she can't help it, if it's in her blood.

"Dare I ask _what_ you were thinking of?" Papa's stern, angry, disgusted-- but not at all overcome with rage. No matter how imposing he could sound, there was always control in his voice. And it's there now, an anger being used to make her little brother sob like the pathetic thing he is. 

 

Eliza had tentatively asked if Papa's death had brought them closer at all;  _she'd_  been older, she'd stayed in Germany with mother when their parents' perfect marriage was no more; she never wanted to be more than the perfect wife and mother and domestic goddess. Eliza was in ignorant bliss on the other side of the world.

"He isn't one of  _us_ ," Franziska had said dismissively, "And he seems to have an unhealthy obsession with the man who brought down Papa in court."

They'd stopped talking about it. It was as though Eliza knew that they weren't to grow closer than sometimes subordinate and boss, and sometimes rivals in the courtroom.

  
More than anything, she longed to sink her teeth into him again.

"It was that boy you associated with when you were a child, wasn't it?" 

Drunk and feeling her thoughts and memories drift to the and of the melancholy, Franziska's interest is piqued. She knew Miles Edgeworth received letters from an old friend; that he'd campaigned to have things redirected over the years.

She found out, years afterwards, that the boy had been Phoenix Wright. 

She didn't know that Papa knew.

Miles Edgeworth does not say anything; tears continue running down his cheeks in a manner that Franziska suspects she'd be associating with guilt if they were from a defendant in a courtroom.

"Perfection need not sully itself with such frivolity," Papa says sternly, and Miles Edgeworth's expression changes to something between fear and confusion.

It would be hilarious if that strange feeling hadn't crept into the pit of her stomach again. She's not sure why it's there; maybe it's the volume of the alcohol-- Miles Edgeworth  _was_  being childish and disgusting obviously, and aside from that point, his attachment to Wright even back then was a foolishly foolish waste of time. He should have been concentrating on his studies as she was, not having ridiculous romantic notions about people he hadn't seen in years.

  
She sips the wine again, both hesitant and curious, wondering if her face mirrors Miles Edgeworth's on the screen. Curious and strangely afraid even though she is perfectly unafraid of everything, and because she understands what constitutes foolishness, she isn't at all a risk-taker where it is unwarranted. But she's... nervous.

She doesn't like being nervous; perfection doesn't need nervousness, this is like the feeling she had before sitting the bar exam and how she felt when she really believed, for a moment, before forcing herself out of that pathetic sentimentality-- that Miles Edgeworth really  _had_  killed himself. She doesn't know what to  _do_  with nervousness beyond attempt to push it down somewhere where it can't be felt or realised any more, or failing that, to mask it with contempt.

She never truly despised him, and while he was pathetic and flawed, she never wanted him  _dead_ , either. The idea that he might have died-- by his own hand, no less-- was a nausea-inducing earthquake of a feeling; unstoppable through will and she hated herself for it. If he was dead, she would have nothing to compete with.

It was then she realised that she didn't love him, but she needed him around. To beat him, to show him who ruled the roost now that Papa was gone. If Miles Edgeworth feared her and submitted to her as he did to Papa, it was, in a way, accepting her fate, keeping the spirit of a great man, a perfect man-- alive.

"Would you like me to leave, sir?" Miles Edgeworth asks. She giggles; he really  _does_  sound stupid: it took him so much longer, compared to her, to be prepared to sit the bar, so much more encouragement and assistance, all of which  _she_  had to do for herself.

"No," Papa says, and there's a dark growl to his voice which she's not used to. Cocking her head to the side uncertainly and sipping some more of the wine, she waits, the pathetic, emotional sense of fear about an incident that happened more than ten years ago foolishly somehow affecting her.

She needs to see this because she's not scared of the truth, she tells herself. But the truth she needs is that of Papa's innocence, that there is no way on earth that he could go beyond strict discipline into what amounts to-- even if it's only happening to Miles Edgeworth-- criminal activity.

She can feel her heart racing as her worst suspicions aren't quite confirmed, but there is nothing to suggest that they're wrong. 

She hears Papa murmur something, a sadistic smirk in his voice, his hand move to his crotch, but she's not concentrating; she's feeling violently ill, she's had too much wine, she's feeling her head spin, her body rolling in space, over itself and through blackness even though she's sitting on the sofa.

She stumbles, knocking journals to the floor, and in the darkness, makes a dash for the bathroom, the kitchen, anywhere with cleanable surfaces. 

This is not the behaviour befitting a von Karma, but she cannot help it. No one will see this, she tells herself as she's vomiting into the sink and painfully yanking her silver-blue hair back, no one will know, she's still perfect, she's still a spitting image of Papa-- whatever that means now-- and she heaves into the steel basin once more.

 

It's in her blood, she cannot help it.

 

Turning on the tap and pouring herself a glass of water, she sips carefully, hoping the worst of it is over. She knows that dehydration is a result of regurgitating the contents of one's stomach, that drinking water will counteract this. 

She's shaking. She wants to go to bed, to not have to face it any more, to face what he was, what she might be and what was done to  _him_.

She flicks on the light in the living room, and scattered pictures on the floor face her, Miles Edgeworth in a multitude of poses and outfits, the pictures all having one common similarity-- the fact that he's not smiling in any of them. No; he smiled for the family portraits; he smiled when he'd figured something out, his smiles were rare, as though he was offering them as a kind of payoff, or as though he had done something to  _earn_  the right to smile.

She kicks along the floor angrily and is shocked by the silence on the screen in front of her. 

She knows what's happening even though the camera direction is no longer perfect. She can see Miles Edgeworth's head in Papa's lap, edges of his face every so often, wet with tears, his eyes clenched shut as though he's trying to deny a particularly awful nightmare.

It's when she sees the  _smile_  on Papa's face, the smile Miles Edgeworth can't see because he's trying not to see anything, that something changes. 

"No," he murmurs softly. The word is a dull, drunken note of disbelief and revulsion.

This was Papa. This was Miles Edgeworth, who'd never said anything,  _ever_ , who'd carried himself with a quiet and determined sort of dignity, who'd never complained about anything; including her taunts about being a failure and imperfect and the odd suggestion that his fascination with Wright was somehow  _wrong_  and disgusting, that... 

She flicks the remote control at the television and is mildly relieved when it snaps off.

 

She has the evidence, and she's not sure how she feels any more. She hates Papa for doing this, but she hates herself for her envy and her horror at all the attention Miles Edgeworth received. She was ignored and left to fend for herself; she always felt she played the part of the survivor making it through regardless of hostile and indifferent surroundings. 

Tonight has shown her that Miles Edgeworth is a survivor in a completely different way.

 

She hates her curiousity, she hates the idea that perhaps there is a part of  _this_ \-- the capability-- to be the same-- what if there is nothing she can do about it, it's in her blood?-- and she grimly looks at the horrifying photographs on the floor, faces staring up at her like dead men's severed heads, blank and helpless and frozen--  _you couldn't save me_ ; and she clumsily gathers them together and dumps them into the fireplace.

She's humane enough to leave this where it was meant to stay; dead men can't be prosecuted, Miles Edgeworth has already suffered enough and survived nonetheless-- she thinks of him and his closeness to Wright and hopes, more than anything, that he's sleeping soundly, contentedly and happily, not screaming in his sleep as he did when he was living here.

She tries to recall things; anything which might have been evidence to suggest the reality of Papa's attention towards her little brother. There were moments-- all too easily written off or suppressed or denied or whatever the human mind does to assure itself that all is proper and well; she remembers Miles Edgeworth at about fifteen, crying uncontrollably in the library one afternoon-- it was memorable because it was such a rare occasion. He'd seemed to be sobbing over a particular case in a book; she'd called him foolish and a bleeding heart, had asked if maybe he was  _really_  meant to become a defense attorney instead, trying to defend the eternally hopeless and the criminal. 

He'd glared at her with what looked like hatred, then, and she'd smiled and walked away.

There was the night when he'd been older and she hadn't heard the typical screaming coming from his room, and the silence had unnerved her. Only now the idea of becoming used to the noises of night terrors strikes her as disturbing in itself, but she remembers waking in the night and padding down the hallway to hear the soft creak of Papa's bedroom door closing and Miles Edgeworth slinking down the hallway stiffly, robotically sleepwalking, and he'd avoided looking at her.

For some reason, it was haunting. Only now she realises why.

She remembers reading somewhere that women tended to be attracted to men who resembled their fathers, and she always wondered when that was going to happen, and why she found herself harboring curiousity about other women in that stupidly foolish, sentimental fashion instead. 

 

She cleans the floor thoroughly. Every journal, disc, paper, photograph--  _everything_ \-- is awaiting destruction. It's the only perfect thing she could do even though it's fraught with ambiguity-- is she somehow letting Papa get away with what was so obviously premeditated and directed, so perfectly organised and documented-- abuse? 

She does not like ambiguity; it makes her uncomfortable. In the morning she will see to its removal. 

She curls on the sofa, still fully clothed, the stench of vomit and wine surrounding her, a choked feeling in the back of her throat and her eyes trembling with the kind of disbelief that might just see her crying. She does not fall asleep.

 

 

 

 _Epilogue_

The silence is beautiful. Miles Edgeworth knows that it's freezing-- literally, judging from the partial window view he can see from his bed-- it's snowed again overnight-- but the bed he's in is warm. He's content. They needed this holiday.

The idea of just  _going away_  and distracting himself with mindless, frivolous entertainment around this time of year had never occurred to him before. Instead, he stayed at home, close to the source of the memories, he would be there for Franziska if she needed him to be-- although she usually chided him for being foolish if he inquired much deeper than casually about her welfare. Franziska couldn't deal with things, but in her own way, he supposed. He threw himself into work, the distraction not quite covering the guilt and the nightmares, and then mentally admonished himself for failing to truly get over it.

This year had been different.

He turns to the side of the bed where Wright had fallen asleep; Wright isn't there, but a messy, scrunched pile of sheets  _are_. Sitting up, he pulls them up and straightens them out, smoothing over them with a hand and fluffing the pillows. And then he shifts towards the slightly remade side of the bed, curling next to the pillow, realising he can smell Wright on it; warm and soft and strangely comforting; he can identify flowers and varieties of tea easily enough, but he can't quite figure out what  _Wright_  smells like. It's good, though, whatever it is. He closes his eyes and embraces the pillow, deciding to have a few more minutes like this while Wright finishes showering.

"Heh heh..." He'd know the laugh anywhere. There's a jangle of crockery and Miles looks up; Phoenix has acquired  _tea_. He doesn't have the heart to get particular about the fact that he doesn't like the no-name stuff typical of hotels; Wright is smiling and looks thoroughly pleased with himself.

"You're up nice and early," he says. He looks at the saucer Wright's holding. "What's so funny?" 

"I always said you took up as much of my side of the bed as possible," Wright chuckles. "I should have taken a photograph for evidence."

Miles sits up and accepts the saucer. "Thankyou for the tea," he says with a slight smile, "and for allowing me to sleep in... and for..." He uses a wry smile where words won't come. 

"The pleasure was all mine," Wright says smugly. "Well... yours, too, if I'm not to be mistaken." He chuckles to himself again, watching Miles sip his tea. 

  
Across the room, from the nightstand which had jackets discarded onto it in frenzied activity-- clothes which  _should_  have been hung up but which had been forgotten amongst other holidaying activities-- there's a familiar, simple tune.

"I'll get it for you?" Wright asks.

He nods, unsure who'd be ringing him while he's on vacation. He'd explicitly requested not to be annoyed by anyone at the office, and they'd obliged, happy to do so because it was so rare for him to take some time off; they'd welcomed it.

He sips his tea again as Wright makes his way across the room. The phone is found, his jacket is now on the  _floor_ , he notes with horror, and Phoenix is talking to someone for a moment. "He's in  _bed_ ," he says, amused. "To say he's taking it easy is an understatement." He chuckles, walking towards Miles-- who raises an eyebrow and shoots a glance at the jacket on the floor-- and places his saucer on the bedside table, accepting the phone.

"It's Franziska," Phoenix whispers.His heart stops. This is the first year he hasn't been there for her even though she's never needed to need him there really-- what if something has happened? Manfred von Karma was his mentor and captor and ...it's a complicated jumble of the full spectrum of human emotion when he thinks of him.

But for Franziska, he was just her Papa, and she loved him, and she's grieving and it's been ten years. 

He's not expecting good news.

"Hello," he says softly.

"Miles Edgeworth." Her voice is softer than usual, she sounds dull and mellow and very very tired.

"Franziska." He sits up, filled with concern.

"I'm not calling to talk about me, little brother," she says. He can hear the stumble in her voice and he's bewildered.

"You sound dreadful."

"I... last night was the anniversary," she says. "Ten years... I stayed at the house and... drank."

"Franziska!" He's shocked.

"I know it was perfectly... foolish," she says. "I have learned my lesson." 

He's almost amused. In the years he's known her, he's never seen her drunk and can't begin to imagine it. But the suggestion of why she would willingly become drunk worries him. "Are you ... _all right_?" he asks.

"Yes," she snaps brusquely, momentarily sounding like her regular, sober self. "I did not ring to discuss my predicament," she says.

"Well..." Miles glances at the alarm clock next to him. It's early but not ridiculously so. "It's still early to call me when I'm on vacation."

"With Phoenix Wright," she says. She's only ever acknowledged him when she's  _had_  to. "I do hope he's treating you well."

"He just brought me a cup of tea." He smiles to himself.

There's a pause and some silence. "Good," she says finally. 

He sits up a bit more stiffly. "Is there anything specific you called about?" he asks.

"Not especially," Franziska says slowly, but thoughtfully. "I am just aware that it was ten years ago when my father was put to death and that... it's a strange time of the year... and that I know you've appeared to remain nearby and you've always inquired as to how I am, and..."

Miles doesn't say anything. From across the room, Phoenix looks at him quizzically.

"I just was calling," Franziska says softly, deliberately and carefully-- as though she's attempting a phrase in a foreign language-- "To tell my little brother..." She pauses again, her voice unsteady and nervous but still deeply sincere-- "that he's in my thoughts and that I hope he's okay."


End file.
